Using Classic App Lighting Automation that is structured like this
Turn on deck lights (which happen to be a Lutron Caseta Switch) on when motion is detected by deck motion sensor and turn off 1 minute after motion stops. Works fine. Add one more variable and that is only if deck light switch (again Lutron Caseta switch) is OFF. This is meant to preclude automation from running if I manually turn the light switch to on. Problem is, when I add this last condition, the lights turn on when motion is detected and stay on indefinitely. Smartthings has been working to fix this since Jan 2019 and cannot. How can this be? It is a simple automation that should work.
I tried this with other Lutron Caseta switch and motion sensor combinations in my house and it fails to work properly as well.
Deleted lighting automation and recreated it and it does the same thing. It seems like it gets confused at some point in that it sees the light switch was turned on (by the automation itself after motion was sensed) and then doesnt complete the automation step to turn it off after one minute. I kept explaining that to ST support but they cannot find a resolution. I am bonkers mad thinking this should simply work or at least be easy to fix?
You told the entire automation to only fire when the switch is off. So no, with that change it should never turn the switch off, which is exactly what you are seeing.
To do what you want, you need core or webcore, so you can add a variable for tracking so you can turn the life off only if the automation turns it on.
The switch is OFF when the automation fires. Motion is then sensed, turns the light on but it stays on indefinitely. That is the problem. So if that constraint means that the light has to be off for the whole automation cycle, what possible good is it? One would think it is meant as a constraint to start the automation and again, the light is OFF when the cycle starts. Confused…
Are you using the Smart Lighting app? This exact scenario is working for me with Smart Lightning, but I’m using the new V3 app. No need to use anything else for this simple task.
That is great info to hear Paul_DeFeo. I am starting to think that this is an issue with Lutron Caseta switches. Tried this same automation with a lamp plugged into a ST outlet and it worked without an issue. Fed all that information back to ST support and still they cannot isolate the issue after 7 months.
You can achieve what you want w/ the right tools and logic. Smartlighting cant handle what you want to do but core or webcore can as it handles “complicated” logic.
In core or webcore you will want a latching piston w/ this logic:
If light is off and motion changes to active
Then turn on light and set variable “turned on” to true
But if light is on and variable “turned on” is true and motion has been inactive for 1 min
Then turn off light and set variable “turned on” to false Bolded text are triggers.
The above logic is 1 way to turn the light off only if the automation turned it on w/ core / webcore.
I am totally lost when it comes to making routines. Have never ventured into it because when I look at it, I am lost. I will do some checking to see if there is some kind of instruction on how to build these. Thank you.
SmartThings has been working on this since Jan 2019 and finally just gave up. Said they will fix it in Jan 2020 when they roll out the “new” platform, yeah right… So people be advised, if you have a Lutron Caseta switch and try to use it in the prescripted SmartThings lighting automation that exists in both the classic and the new app such that a light turns on due to motion and turns off after motion stops, but does not do so if the switch was manually turned on (because you want the light to stay on until you then manually turn it off), it simply wont work. Neither SmartThings nor Lutron could fix this after 10 months and running me around like a lunatic. No excuse that these big names cant fix real life/common sense routines when they are found broken, within 10 months.